The Scottish Philosophy [172]
in that which exercises the quality. -- (" Phil. Essays," P. 58, etc.) This I must regard as a radically defective doctrine. We do not know intuitively a quality of self apart from self; we know both in one primitive, concrete act, and it is only by a subsequent operation that we separate in thought the quality which may change in its action from the self or substance which abideth. Descartes erred I think, when he represented the mental process as being ":" the primitive cognition is of the ego cogitans. But I look on Stewart as equally erring when he says, that there is first a sensation and then a belief in self. In a later age, Sir William Hamilton connected the theory of Stewart with the theory of Kant. In doing so he was guilty, I must take the liberty of saying of a great and inexcusable blunder. Stewart would have repudiated the phenomenal theory of Kant as at all identical with his own. Stewart, no doubt, speaks of the phenomena of the mind; but he means by phenomena not, as Kant did, , but individual to be referred to a law; and qualities with him were realities. But, legitimately or illegitimately, Hamilton identifying the qualitative theory with the phenomenal, deduces from them a system of relativity, which ended in nihilism, or at least in nescience. I am glad to notice that Mr. Mansel, notwithstanding his great and just admiration of Hamilton, has emancipated himself from this fundamental error. He proclaims, " I am immediately conscious of myself, seeing and hearing, willing and thinking." -- (" Proleg. Logica," P. 129; also Art. in " Encyc. Brit."'. I have sometimes thought that, if Stewart had foreseen ail the logical consequences to be deduced from his views, he would have fallen {290} back on the same common-sense doctrine. I regret that Mr. Mansel has not gone a step farther, and placed our cognition of matter on the same footing in this respect as our knowledge of mind. I am sure, at least, that this would be altogether in the spirit of Reid and Stewart. I maintain that, just as by self-consciousness we know self as exercising such and such a quality, say thinking or feeling, so, by sense-perception, we know a body as extended and exercising power or energy. This is the simplest doctrine: it seems to be the only one consistent with consciousness, and is the proper doctrine of natural realism as distinguished from an artificial system of relativity.
In the second volume of the " Elements," after a feeble and chiefly verbal disquisition on reason, he proceeds to treat of the "fundamental laws of belief." I reckon the phrase a very happy one, and a great improvement on "common sense," which labors under the disadvantage of being ambitious; inasmuch as it usually denotes that unbought, untaught sagacity, which is found only in certain men, and which others can never acquire, whereas it can be admitted into philosophical discussion only when it denotes principles which are regulating the minds of all. I have a remark to make as to the place in which he discusses these fundamental laws. It is after he has gone over the greater number of the faculties, and he seems to treat them as involved in reason. And I acknowledge that there may be some advantages in first going over the faculties and then speaking of these fundamental laws. But we must guard against the idea that these principles are not involved in the faculties which he has previously gone over; such as, perception, abstraction, and memory. The "fundamental laws" are not to be regarded as different from the faculties: they are, in fact, the necessary laws of the faculties, and guiding their exercise. These laws work in all minds, infant and mature, sane and insane. M. Morel was asked to examine a prisoner who seemed to be deranged, and he asked him how old he was; to which the prisoner replied: " 245 francs, 35 centimes, 124 carriages," etc. To the same question, more distinctly asked, he replied,: " 5 metres, 75 centimetres." When asked how long he had been deranged,
In the second volume of the " Elements," after a feeble and chiefly verbal disquisition on reason, he proceeds to treat of the "fundamental laws of belief." I reckon the phrase a very happy one, and a great improvement on "common sense," which labors under the disadvantage of being ambitious; inasmuch as it usually denotes that unbought, untaught sagacity, which is found only in certain men, and which others can never acquire, whereas it can be admitted into philosophical discussion only when it denotes principles which are regulating the minds of all. I have a remark to make as to the place in which he discusses these fundamental laws. It is after he has gone over the greater number of the faculties, and he seems to treat them as involved in reason. And I acknowledge that there may be some advantages in first going over the faculties and then speaking of these fundamental laws. But we must guard against the idea that these principles are not involved in the faculties which he has previously gone over; such as, perception, abstraction, and memory. The "fundamental laws" are not to be regarded as different from the faculties: they are, in fact, the necessary laws of the faculties, and guiding their exercise. These laws work in all minds, infant and mature, sane and insane. M. Morel was asked to examine a prisoner who seemed to be deranged, and he asked him how old he was; to which the prisoner replied: " 245 francs, 35 centimes, 124 carriages," etc. To the same question, more distinctly asked, he replied,: " 5 metres, 75 centimetres." When asked how long he had been deranged,